Men's Health, Stress, and Life After 40: A Real Conversation - 112

Coach Brian Parana (0:0.344) Brian, welcome back my friend. How have you been? I have been so good. I am pleased to be back and looking forward to our conversation. Yeah, the pleasure is all mine because we're going to talk about a few things, but of course we're going to talk about your recent vacation, which I'm so excited to hear that with you, your family and everything that that entails. So do me a favor, please Brian, reintroduce yourself, tell my audience a little bit about who you are and of course where they can find you. Coach Brian Parana (0:28.364) Wonderful. Well, I'm coach Brian Pratt and I've been in the health, fitness, nutrition industry for over 23 years. I've talked to thousands of people, young, old, healthy, sick, chronically ill, people who know a lot about taking care of themselves and those who don't. And my job is to make it the simplest and easiest way possible for someone to reach their goals. Whether it is weight loss or overcoming some chronic illness like type two diabetes, a heart attack. Coach Brian Parana (0:58.018) cholesterol, blood pressure, you name it, I've talked to someone that has dealt with it. So, and that's my job. I've focused recently a lot on men to help men in their 40s, 50s and beyond to really focus on themselves because they get trapped in the busyness of life of taking care of themselves. I have four kids myself. We love to travel and just every day is on the go. So it's really easy for that workout that you thought you were gonna do to just fade. Coach Brian Parana (1:27.342) away. Even this week, I spent on impromptu three hours for an art gallery after school from two to 430. Then right after that, we had a track meet for my second son and that was three hours and it got done. So two to 915 was occupied on Wednesday. Last night, I drove my wife to Detroit. Coach Brian Parana (1:51.980) because the rental car wasn't working very well. So I ended up taking a six hour impromptu time out of my day to go handle her and get her to off to Croatia because she's a travel advisor. And then today I had four hours for a track meet for my second son. So there you go. There is lots of things happening in everyone's life and taking care of yourself can quickly and easily fall by the wayside. Coach Brian Parana (2:21.162) You live a busy life, my friend. How do you stay balanced? geez, I don't. I have very few priorities. Family first, my career and my clients are second and then everything else starts to fade from there. Now I do have to wiggle myself in naturally being a health coach. I have to take care of myself, right? I have to lead by. Coach Brian Parana (2:46.090) Example. So it does take a priority and I have different figured out different ways to figure that in with scheduling workouts with my buddies. That's how we spend time together. We don't go to the bar or watch sport games or something like that. We come into my barn here and we work out and spend time that way. So that ends up being a big priority. I spend time with my kids exercising and then I found I figured out instead of a walking desk, I have a bike. Coach Brian Parana (3:13.614) And I created this bike stand up desk thing that I pedal while I work. And it's been amazing. So that's been able to keep my, say zone two level of activity up and keep conditioning. So it does have to be a priority and scheduled somehow some way. And you just have to be determined to fit it in at least a couple of times a week. Coach Brian Parana (3:39.950) Someone once shared with me that terrain, I went from the bar to lifting a bar. Yeah, yeah. Right. Because they're at the gym and they're that is their way of keeping balance because sometimes they're stressful. They're like, OK, I'm to hit a PR today because I'm so stressed. I'm going to focus that energy. Right. I have a punching bag. I don't know if I shared with you last time we spoke. I have a punching bag in my garage. If I have a difficult day, everyone that stressed me out, their name is on that bag. Coach Brian Parana (4:8.388) Right, I'm giving liver shots to the CEO, I'm giving left hooks to whomever, Whatever works, whatever works. And I found that it's so therapeutic to just do something that is strenuous physically when you have such an emotionally or mentally draining day. Why do you? Coach Brian Parana (4:29.966) What do you think are some of the obstacles that men have in particular when it comes to finding that balance or finding something that's going to help them stay balanced? Yeah, a lot of them reminisce around being the high school athlete back in the day. I used to whatever and then they've slowly deconditioned over the last 10 to 15 years and popping them out in their mid 40s or 50s and that sedentary lifestyle, that busyness of Coach Brian Parana (4:57.108) of prioritizing family, providing, going through little kids and growing a business and establishing yourself in your career, it really, you lose that identity of that active, healthy fit person. And some of the initial things I need to do straight away is connect those dots immediately. So Terrain, you love boxing. Okay, cool. Tell me a bit more about that. And then we could go into this storyline to figure out Coach Brian Parana (5:26.730) Is this because you're Rocky Balboa inspired you or like kickboxing class or or you just picked it up recently and then I start to develop through our relationship to help understand why boxing is a great stress relief and then we figure out and I'll I just like poke and push and encourage and and foster that type of a relationship and development to get say for you boxing back into a primary Coach Brian Parana (5:55.086) piece of some of the activities that you do in the course of a week. It doesn't have to be every day, but of course the week, okay, one, two times you're thinking you go out and box and all of a sudden with these tiny little agreements and re-identifying with that, that, that athlete inside and that, that like aggressiveness or that the competitiveness or just the need to expend energy other than staring at a screen all day, 24 seven. Coach Brian Parana (6:23.822) That's how we can start to wiggle it back into someone's life. I'm glad you share that. I recently had a conversation with a coworker and we're talking about social media. And I told her that I don't have any personal social media. It's all business and charities. Like you and I follow each other. And she was like, so what do you do? I was like, okay, this is what I do. was like, no, no, What do you do in your life? I was like, what do mean? She's like, well, you don't do on social media. Like social media is everyone's life. Coach Brian Parana (6:50.446) When she asked that question, Brian, I thought she meant, do I do charity and coaching wise? Oh, right. But she thought that because I don't have social media, she thought that I work, go home and sit and have to sleep. Yeah. I'm like, no, I'm living the life that you post about that you watch other people do. And you can see the wheels turning. I was like, I would go on vacation where you'd watch people's photos of the vacation. She's like, oh, OK. Coach Brian Parana (7:20.374) I understand now, but it was such a loss art that because I would ask her then, why don't you just go on the vacations that you watch online? Yeah. She's like, well, it's not going to look like this. It's not going to look like that, but it's going to be your experience. You came back from a vacation. How did that positively impact your family? My gosh. My wife, she has wanderlust. Fortunately for me, we spend a lot of time, energy, money, resources to travel. Coach Brian Parana (7:47.118) And I fully identify with that. That's just part of my identity. Now we've had the fortune and taking our four kids. have Levi, Everett, Maxwell, and Emeline, three boys and a girl 16 to 10. So we're in the thick of it. There's constant demand, but we take time out to prioritize. We've been to all 50 States and we're working on all seven continents per Maxwell. My third son, his suggestion as we were walking back from in Moab. Coach Brian Parana (8:15.256) from the arches monument, the Utah license plate one, that one, that one. And he's like, how about we, after we get done with the 50 states, how about we do all seven continents? And I look back at him. So what? I'd never grasp the idea of planning feet on Antarctica. And now we have conversations about going through the Drake passage. You're going to get the Drake Lake or the Drake Shake. And it's where this convergent of three. Coach Brian Parana (8:43.252) Massive bodies of water converged into this this inlet to get to Antarctica and the only way to get in is through a ship and you certainly could fly but then you just basically add a zero for six people to be able to afford that but a ship is the way to go and and we're talking about all this adventure and something so we just got back from South America Peru and we were able to that's our fourth continent as a family and we still have Asia and our and Australia Coach Brian Parana (9:13.090) to go, but we prioritize this. And so we spent about 10 ish days in Peru. We, we went, we, live near Cleveland, Ohio. So we flew down to Miami, spent a day there. We biked with alligators next to us, like in the shark valley Everglades national park. Then we flew down overnight trying to get those two younger kids, especially to sleep on the plane when they could just stare and watch movies was whole, that was dumb. Coach Brian Parana (9:39.810) But then we land in Lima and go to Cusco and we did beaches and we did mountains. We did the Amazon. took trains, planes, automobiles, bicycles, tuk-tuks. We did all sorts of different activities and we swam with sea lions. We fished for piranhas. We went to Machu Picchu and, and, and bike next to those alligators. And the, the idea is that we can't take our money with us, but we can create fond memories. Coach Brian Parana (10:8.354) that connect our family together. And then also foster connection. Like I believe you live in Toronto, right? Right, and I was in Toronto around Thanksgiving. So we went up to Niagara Falls and then we went to Canada Wonderland and we were freezing, but we're up there in around late November, early December, having a blast as a family. And that's something that has resonated not only with, obviously with what my wife does as a living, but also as Coach Brian Parana (10:37.334) connecting our family so that we give our kids in our space a lot of opportunity to do things. But also I can connect with you really quickly because I've been in Toronto multiple times and I really enjoy that city. And all of a you get to see the world from a different lens. And this is something that I appreciate the most because people were asking me, you're going international, aren't you like worried or whatever? I've been to Africa, multiple countries in Europe. Coach Brian Parana (11:6.446) now South America and I have not been, I have not felt threatened. I have not felt lack of security or safety in these places. Why? Of course we're not like mingling with like the drug dealers of the cartel of Mexico or something, right? You'll get yourself in trouble pretty quick there. But what I find is that people are as a human race want to live a happy, healthy, joy-filled experience in their life. Coach Brian Parana (11:35.250) and they are more than excited to have visitors to come in and learn about their culture and spend money with them. And that's been my life experience so far with travel. And it's just a beautiful thing. I've been to Panama, Cuba, Bali, and I'm missing one other place in the last, let's say, five years. And similar to you, I've always felt safe. Coach Brian Parana (12:3.316) And I've loved the experience because it is such a, what's word I'm looking for? Soothing effects. It's like you're detoxing, but you're not necessarily addicted to something. Maybe you're addicted to work or helping people, right? But it's like a detox. It's like, wow, I'm escaping my everyday life, which is pretty good. But I get a relax from everything else for those who maybe don't have the travel bug like how you and I have it. Definitely you have a more than I do because you and your family love it so much. Right. Coach Brian Parana (12:34.370) What are maybe some other ways that they could find happiness in general that you could recommend? We have time. That's all we have, right? There's three parts of time that we have and experience in this life. Past, which is behind us. And in the past, we want to bring the memories, the love, the joy, the energy with us, right? We want to learn from our mistakes. We don't have to live in our mistake and carry that with us as our Coach Brian Parana (13:3.438) identity for the continuation of the rest of your life or something is say you did something bad and like everyone does bad stuff. Sometimes you get caught, like you go to jail, like you don't have to be, you know, any of that stuff. You can, you can reinvent yourself every step of the way. So we bring the love, the joy, the shared joyful memories. We, we learn from our experience. Coach Brian Parana (13:30.242) We have the present. This is all we have. You and I are engaging right now and I want to be as present as I can. And that's so important, especially in our current modern day of age. there's, I don't know about you, but AI and everything has been fast forward. Like I think we're on a rocket ship in terms of just the, the attention and the seeking and the dopamine and the instant gratification and all these things and people in their phones in their face all the time. And so we don't actually appreciate Coach Brian Parana (13:59.788) the present. And that's something that we really need to tune into because it's really easy to put your head in the sand, scroll for an hour. And then next thing you know, you're you passed out and your phone hits you on your face to wake you back up to go to bed. And then the future we have, that's the third component of time. And I believe you should live in anticipation of the experiences that you want to have. Why wouldn't you? Why couldn't you? Coach Brian Parana (14:26.934) travel or why couldn't you have a better job or a better relationship or do something fun and engaging and exciting, whether it costs money or it doesn't cost anything. And that's something that I'm trying to teach my kids is one, don't live life 10 seconds at a time. You're going to lose a decade of your life before you come up for air and realize you've wasted so much time and so much loss. Secondly, you can be bored. It's okay to just not be stimulated and just be bored. Coach Brian Parana (14:56.362) And thirdly is that you have to create the fun. You have to create the experience. You show up with your energy and then that creates the experiences that you have in life for you to remember and to share and to bring more joy to others. So, is live life in anticipation. Be present, be joy-filled, seek out happiness, help other people. Coach Brian Parana (15:24.766) and look for excitement in whatever experience you like to have in life. It could be travel, could be other things. Those paths of finding happiness that's unique to you for some people is going to be travel, some people is going to be the gym, some people it may be, hey, Brian Turing, I just want to sit at home and relax and watch Netflix and chill with myself, right? Just me and my TV and a bowl of popcorn. What are some of the ways that... Go ahead. Coach Brian Parana (15:54.508) Yeah, with that, we can have those down times. You can watch a movie and have popcorn. That's okay. But if that defaults to the everyday life, I don't think that's living life. I think you're checking out. I think you're not experiencing what life is. Life is all sorts of emotions from happiness to sadness, to easy, to hard, to challenging, to you conquer and overcome. And that's how you grow. So yes, I would totally say. Coach Brian Parana (16:23.788) watch movie by yourself, have a popcorn. Cool. But if that's every that's that's your every day, I don't think that's actually living. I think you're you're doing something else. Yeah. And that's what I was going to say, right? Like some people may find it that way, but then it becomes something that is a hindrance blocking them. Right. On that note, then what are some of the obstacles that can lead people to trying to find happiness in all the wrong ways? Coach Brian Parana (16:52.302) well, humans have addictive behaviors naturally, right? And even right now in our current time, we see attention, drugs, sex, gambling, like money, all these things are amplified because we're so connected to everyone, but we're so disconnected socially to everyone as well. And there's this really complicated situation that we're experiencing as a human race. Coach Brian Parana (17:22.282) So addiction is more prevalent than ever because of just everything's literally marketed or consumerism or capitalism. These are all things that are in existence. And I don't know if they're actually more beneficial. Yes, convenience is a lifestyle, right? You can go buy a million calories for Coach Brian Parana (17:49.742) pretty cheap within walking distance of your house. But that's not going to benefit you, right? Cause it's going to be simple process, sugary type, whatever, and crinkly packages. And that's not going to be beneficial to your overall life. Whereas maybe say we were visiting and learning about the Incas and their, their philosophies and their culture and their empire. They had a much simpler lifestyle. We would probably find it really boring, but also Coach Brian Parana (18:19.072) It was simple. They had to pay attention to eating, staying alive, and then they were able to express themselves in some form of entertainment or dance or song or connection and community, which again is something that we're really lacking, I believe, a lot at this time. It seems like we've given up connection for convenience and people for things. Coach Brian Parana (18:43.534) Agreed, unfortunately, and I'll admit I fall victim to that just like anyone else. I'm a little more aware of it, but am I hyper aware? I to the point of growing my own food in my yard? No. I'm gonna go buy food at the grocery store in a sense because it's more convenient and easier for me to operate in my day-to-day life. Coach Brian Parana (19:7.970) I remember that I was reading somewhere where the person was going shopping and she was, she mentioned food and she was complaining, she made a video about it. She's like, food is so expensive. I can't believe there's taxes on foods and the prices keep going up. She showed her cart and people were like, where's the food? And she's like, what do mean? She's like chips, cookies. Coach Brian Parana (19:36.366) Right? These things are like, that's not food. They're like, where's the meat? Where's the where's the salad? Right? But her mind she was conditioned to think of cookies, chips and so on, as food versus something else. Could it be that sometimes our perception is skewed? And that's really what's impacting us. Totally. Marketing 101. You and I both know this slogan really well, right? Because we're about the same age in a sense and Coach Brian Parana (20:2.242) They're great. That's Tony the Tiger, Frosted Flakes, right? We've been indoctrinated that that is a great breakfast cereal in a sense, right? Everyone knows Tony the Tiger and so least our age group does, right? Cause you got it on Saturday morning cartoons and all this stuff, right? And so we're inundated with marketing and let's say nutrition, cause I talk a lot about nutrition. I'd say about 75 to 80 % of the time I'm talking to people about food. Coach Brian Parana (20:31.030) and how to have a better education, understanding, responsibility around it and all, and to learn. And you learn about nutrition two different ways, from parenting, from your parents, right? And whatever they knew or learned or shared with you. And then marketing, which probably influenced your parents. I was born in the early 80s. Coach Brian Parana (20:56.904) a hamburger helper and all these things and McDonald's and all these things started to become prevalent a lot more and a lot more marketing dollars and everything put into it. So then by default, I could easily just fall into just society saying, there's McDonald's. I'm loving it, right? There's a blend of two different jingles from McDonald's that I know. And just fall suit. we pass McDonald's. Ding. Pavlov's dog goes off. Coach Brian Parana (21:26.508) I gotta go see the golden arches, cause my mouth's salivating, cause the fries are manufactured to taste amazing. And there's the problem. Or I can say, hey, I need to be responsible. And a large fry people is basically a meal. It's like 600 calories. So you will, you're just gonna forego a whole meal if you're gonna eat that. And it's not gonna move you in the direction that you wanna go toward better energy, better health, keeping your weight managed well. Coach Brian Parana (21:56.618) unfortunate. Coach Brian Parana (21:59.586) I was looking at the food pyramid since you mentioned we're around the same age. I remember when we're growing up, I think it was heavy on the greens, if I remember correctly, bread, cereal was this, as you mentioned, know, Tony the tiger. That was the big one, right? Now it's inverted. Now it's less of that and it's more of the protein, more of the vegetables. And you remember that saying, you can't leave the table until you eat your vegetables or clean your plate, right? Clean your plate. Coach Brian Parana (22:29.454) Clean Play Club. Is the focus on what's the word I'm looking for for it? Food that is beneficial to us or food that maybe we're more emotionally tied to such as a sweets. Is there a disconnect between the two that you see in the men that you're helping? Yeah. Well, episode 51 of Driven for Health. That's my podcast. I've been shamelessly plugging with my drink up. Coach Brian Parana (22:58.572) I actually talk about the new food pyramid and what it means and all. Here's the easiest takeaway. Whether you think it's right or wrong or the old pyramids right or wrong or my plate is right or wrong. Those are three government led initiations on food. Coach Brian Parana (23:20.446) People don't follow them. Coach Brian Parana (23:23.704) So it doesn't matter. You could totally blame the old one or the new one or the my plate or whatever. People aren't following those. They're not eating whole foods. They're not eating an appropriate amount of calories at the time that they need to ingest calories in food. They're over-indulgated with sugary processed carbs and fats and ultra processed foods that taste amazing and are by default everywhere you look. Coach Brian Parana (23:51.342) with shiny crinkly packages and just they beckon to you, right? They call and it's like, Reese's come and enjoy me. And that ends up being the bigger issue than whether we can say this government led nutritional approach is healthier or better or whatever than another. don't, don't, that's what I'm thinking is that just people just don't follow it. Coach Brian Parana (24:20.526) plainly because if they did, they would eat things in a reasonable portion amount of food and they, wouldn't have a lot of people in a overweight, obese, morbidly obese or chronic illness type categories right now. As men and women get older, because I know you work with men over a certain age, is that a struggle for them to maintain a healthy form of Coach Brian Parana (24:49.674) anything really from food to activities, anything that they're intaking in their lives. Habits, behaviors, these things are ingrained in them and we have to find ways to break those down. Example, you've heard this one, everyone listening and will hear this phrase. You can lead a horse to water, but can't make it drink it. Right? Right? We've all heard that. Coach Brian Parana (25:18.274) But there is a way to get the horse to drink the water. Do you know what it is? I was going to say push the horse's water and head into the water. It's the isn't going to get us to drink though, right? No, no, I would say that you probably want to lead by example. Give it a reason to exactly what a simple reason to get the horse thirsty is salting the oats that it eats before you take it to the water source and then it'll be thirsty. Coach Brian Parana (25:48.374) So I am over here trying to salt the oats, going back to the boxing reference for you. I'm going to salt the, reason you like the box and make sure that we connect a positive reaction to it so that you experience, stress relief, but actual enjoyment from it as well. And make sure that it's a repeatable process that we can ingrain and put back into your weekly life. Now doesn't have to be daily, but Hey, once or twice or three times a week you box for Coach Brian Parana (26:17.870) 10, 20, 30 minutes, what have you, or you go sign up for a boxing club or something. And that changes the relationship of you and boxing as an activity that you can foster. And that's part of the process. So you can teach an old dog new tricks, but with animals, and I found this pretty wild through my sheer volume of experience of doing animal specific type travel, because we have four young kids and we thrive in a... Coach Brian Parana (26:47.038) in an environment with animals, with our kids and stuff, they just, have a blast. So fishing for piranhas, how do we get the fish, the piranhas, right? We didn't just jump in and put our finger in and pull it up, right? No, we use bait, right? Or I remember in San Diego at SeaWorld, the amount of food that they gave the orcas every time they did a trick. I mean, they were taking like a shovel worth of fish and throwing in their mouth to reinforce a positive behavior. Coach Brian Parana (27:16.224) And that's what my job is to help break through all the challenge through the stress, through the busy schedule, through the, everyone that I work with is busy. And so how do I get them to create a new identity or a new connection to taking care of themselves? And it starts with basic things of what I call the core four. So we got the basics of drinking enough water of sleeping enough. Coach Brian Parana (27:43.794) of moving your body enough, whether you're working out or not, or just walking 10,000 steps. And then nutrition, eating whole foods, eating three to maybe four times a day, balanced calorie appropriate meals. And when we implement all those things, then the body starts working. The habits start working, the energy starts showing up and people feel better. And then that reinforces the cycle of taking care of themselves or doing these new behaviors or activities. Coach Brian Parana (28:13.174) If someone's not taking care of themselves, what are some of the positive or not so positive consequences that you've seen happen to them from like a body wise? Well, the obvious one, the clothes don't fit to wow, I feel like sleeping every day at three o'clock to just being strung out on caffeine all day because they don't actually food or having intense cravings for foods that they literally can't ignore. Coach Brian Parana (28:39.188) and put aside the ultra processed foods, right? Why is it that I always put my face in ice cream or the Reese's or the sugar or whatever? And that's because they aren't following these behaviors. So then we get to another level of being overweight. And the more overweight you are, the more likely you are to be connected with chronic illness. Also newsflash, unfortunately, you and I, hey, Coach Brian Parana (29:6.030) We're men, we're gonna have about average age of 76 years on this planet is the chronological average of this all. And at 43 years young, man, 30 more years left, holy cow. I don't want that. But also we go back to going overweight. How many 80 year olds you find that are over 300? It doesn't happen, right? And because natural selection will... Coach Brian Parana (29:33.366) take that person out because they've weakened defenses. The disease has already snuck in the back door, say type two diabetes. I'm 30 pounds away, my doctor has been telling me to lose weight forever. My blood panels are always good every time I go and you just ignore it, ignore it. Well, at some point that diabetes is going to exit the back door, walk around and knock on the front door like, Hey, Coach Brian Parana (29:59.950) I just introduced myself. I'm type two diabetes. I'm here to stay. I'm moving in. You're like, no, you slammed the door and it's like, no, it sticks its foot in the door. Like that's not how this works right now because you've invited me. You've been putting a signal out for years and decades of come to me and move into my house and all that stuff. So these are really bad things. And I always have to ask people what are, there's two sides of the coin. Coach Brian Parana (30:28.142) The first one is what is it that you want to experience when you do get to a healthier you? Right? Because then they can see they call it the heaven and the hell. And so you have the heaven like, oh, I can be able to do these things that I haven't been able to do. I can work more like whatever their their goal. I can go to the beach and feel confident again. Right. I can be closer to my partner relationship wise, like intimacy wise. Things like that are important. And I hear that a lot. Coach Brian Parana (30:56.436) or the flip side of the coin, the cost of inaction. Well, train, if you give up on boxing and you give into the processed foods and 10 years, you just slowly gain one pound a year and 10 years or 10 pounds away, 20 years or 20 pounds overweight or worse, could be 40 pounds overweight. Where does that likely put you then? And I have to get people to stop and think in the book, no, I'm never going to let that happen. Well, I'm sorry. Coach Brian Parana (31:26.232) John, Sally, whoever I'm talking to, you're in the worst health position that you are right now. That's what got you to raise your hands in the first place. And you would have never believed you would have gotten to this place 10 years ago. So the possibility is truly there. So I have to get people to see and think about the consequences of their actions if they don't take action toward a better healthier self. Coach Brian Parana (31:56.654) People living with blinders on when it comes to their own health. People are living with blinders on when it comes to lot of things. Me included. Right. Again, I'm not going to say that I'm perfect. No one is. And there's certain things. A good example for me, I'll admit that this is year number two that of Brian doing his taxes. You're like Brian, you're 43. How have you only done taxes for two years? Well, I paid taxes every year, but someone else did it. Coach Brian Parana (32:24.974) right? Because it was painful. I didn't know what to do or how to do it. Or I gave that blinder of like, blah, blah, blah, tax, so my wife did it. Her mom did it. My grandma hired someone to do it. My mom did it way back. And those kind of the progression of what got me to year 41 when my wife says I'm not doing it anymore. You get to do it. And she literally just cold turkey said, if we get, if we get audited and fine because we didn't pay taxes this year, it's, it's on you. So you better do something. So Coach Brian Parana (32:54.636) I got an accountant and I figured out how to work quick books and I'm still learning and stuff, but those are blinds, right? That's a real situation that I put my head in the sand and just focus on the things that I do like. And life isn't always like that. You do have to pay attention and do things that you don't always want to do all the time. That's the unfortunate sadness of adulting. Once you realize adulting and it's true capacity, that's something that say, Coach Brian Parana (33:22.806) my parents were divorced when I was younger and I didn't get to see these things because my dad was only around every other week or my mom's heavily distracted trying to provide a living, things like that. So I don't get to connect and understand or see these things that they can teach me what's happening. And that's something that like my wife and I are highly committed to doing is make sure that we can foster relationship like, hey, life is gonna life on you, man. It's gonna get hard. So you need to equip yourself. Coach Brian Parana (33:50.860) with skills and abilities and relationships and communication so that you're not going to do that 10 seconds at a time scrolling on reels that don't mean anything and don't give you actually any value. Coach Brian Parana (34:5.678) I turned 40 April 4th, so not that long ago. And I share that because thank you, thank you. You mentioned that in men in our 40s, we faced different challenges. And I said that I wanted to change the way I was going to the gym and change the way that I was keeping healthy. So instead of trying to be this jacked big guy, I was like, let me lean out, let me be more functional and increase my strength. I found that Coach Brian Parana (34:34.410) I was able to move around differently. I found that I was more energetic as well as I don't eat meat. I used to be a pesky, I used to be a vegan. Now I'm pescatarian on eat seafood. I feel in the best shape of my life because I made these changes. And when I seen some of your clips and you talk about diabetes and this stuff, I was thinking, I don't know anyone in my family that has it, but I don't want to be the first. Right. Right. And Coach Brian Parana (34:59.946) I knew someone that I used to work with, he didn't have diabetes, he got it because he ate poorly, lot of sugary things because he was always at work working 10, 12, 14 hours. It's desk food, right? At your desk you probably have a bag of chips, bag of candy, whatever. Convenience food. When he found out he was diabetic, it was probably two years after someone was born and he cried. And the reason why he cried is he shared to me, I always wanted to be here for my son. Coach Brian Parana (35:26.892) And now that I have this, I don't know if I'm going to be. I said, you still could be. It's not a death sentence, right? It's like when someone says that they have some type of illness, unless they are going to die that moment, you could, your life may change, but you can live with it. How do you help men to continue to be confident that life can continue forward and not to get discouraged and think it's all over? Coach Brian Parana (35:51.254) Well, again, going back to my podcast, I've covered some things like say type two diabetes is episode 89. It was so as to title, I just got diagnosed with type two diabetes. Now what? And then there's a couple other ones after that in the nineties episodes that talk about it literally has tried to recreate an experience of someone just plugging chugging. Coach Brian Parana (36:15.874) being busy, living life to then getting diagnosed to going to the doctor and afterwards and going through that literal timeline of what happens three months out, six months out, 12 months out. You can reverse type two diabetes people. You can take back control of your health and your body. You can extend your life another five to 10 years of high quality living. I had type two diabetes in my family, both of my grandmothers. One, Coach Brian Parana (36:42.830) Though the one the first one I don't know grandma Ellen I don't know if she had gotten it or whatever unfortunately she was overweight and being overweight or a healthy body weight doesn't imply that you are more or are less at risk skinny people get diabetes because of the high sugar carbohydrate content that they eat but she managed it reasonably well she got to age 84 and Could function and do things and whatnot my other grandma grandma Pat she ended up getting diagnosed Coach Brian Parana (37:13.010) and it was a very high A1C and it caused, it wreaked havoc on her life. Double leg amputation. She lived in five different assisted living homes. And I got to see this in my late teens, early twenties, this experience of her life for the last decade. And it was just traumatic for lack of better phrase to her to choose the true matriarch of our family. And everyone would come over to her house. Her house is that way about Coach Brian Parana (37:41.510) mile, mile to two miles that way. And we would have so much time, fun and time. have so many fond memories until the end. And so it is important to understand that you can change it by taking more responsibility. And yes, you're always going to be busy. There's never a good time. There's never enough time or money or effort or any of that stuff for anything that you need to make a priority. But you have to re shape, re change Coach Brian Parana (38:9.794) your priorities and how your day to day life goes. And if you, always say this to people, cause yeah, I talked to a lot of people about health, nutrition and lifestyle, but also say if, if your work career was creating a lot of friction for our goal of being a better boxer and getting healthier in your forties and feeling younger at 50, then you do a 40, right? That could be your goal. That's my goal. And Coach Brian Parana (38:37.218) But if work is causing this huge stress barrier, we're gonna talk about it. So, Terrain, do you really like work? And you're like, wow, it's really stressful, da da. And so you do realize you don't have to keep doing this, right? There are other ways to make money. And so calling people out to start to crack, so you have the door and just give it a little bit of a crack, a little bit of an opening to get someone to start thinking differently becomes super important. Coach Brian Parana (39:6.254) in the process of change and transformation and behaviors so that they actually can then create something different. One last thing I'll share a story a gentleman I talked to on Thursday, today's Saturday, Thursday, John, we've been working together for over a year. He's lost weight and he's done a lot of good things and but he was he's also divorced. And he was in a relationship that just ultimately didn't pan out. Coach Brian Parana (39:32.662) And now recently his ex-wife has now come back and they're actually moving. They live together and they're moving together and like they're getting, you know, like back into the relationship and stuff. And he told me this on Thursday, which I'm blessed to hear. this isn't the first time this happened, but because he chose to work on himself and because of the actions and the conversations and the things that we focus on for him. Coach Brian Parana (40:1.558) He lost weight and he showed signs that he was taking care of himself. He was able to rekindle that relationship with someone that's been a prominent person in his life to the point where they have kids together. So that was really important. And you can tell that there's this undertone of joy and of happiness and of ease and less stress because he has his life partner back with him, his wingman in life to help. Coach Brian Parana (40:27.818) and manage and love and cherish and foster that type of relationship. And that's magical to be able to help people do that stuff. But it all starts with cracking the door of seeing more opportunity to start coming.